Yesterday, Judge Carol Kuhnke refused to order Graduate Employees’ Organization workers back into the classrooms at the University of Michigan. According to the ruling, graduate student instructors may continue striking while Kuhnke hears arguments from both the University and the GEO. It’s another example of higher education institutions relying (needlessly) on low-wage labor.
About 2,200 graduate student instructors walked off the job on March 29 in a dispute over pay and working conditions. Attorneys for the University argue that a strike three weeks before the end of the semester is catastrophic; however, the University has not canceled classes. The GEO argues that their membership is not being paid a living wage and went on strike ahead of the expiration of the current collective bargaining agreement on May 1.
The GEO seeks an increase in University-paid childcare benefits and a 60% increase in pay, based on MIT’s living-wage data for Washtenaw County. Currently, graduate student instructors make about $12,000 per term. If they were to prevail on the wage issue, their per semester salary would increase to about $19,000. Among other demands, the GEO is seeking increased healthcare benefits, a cap of 20 hours of work per week, and tuition benefits.
It’s not clear what drives a higher education institution’s fascination with low-wage labor to deliver their product. At UM, the president makes a base salary of $975,000. That would pay for 25 graduate students under the GEO’s new wage proposal. Under the current contract, it would pay for more than 40 such instructors.
Higher education institutions have no problem falling over themselves to overpay their highest executives, but somehow can never seem to find the money to pay the people who do the work.
Authentic higher education requires full-time faculty
No student has ever enrolled in any higher education institution because they admired the administration. That is as true at UM as it is at WCC or any other school. So, trying to scrape by on low-wage part-time instructors and graduate student instructors is not only counter-productive, but also strategically foolish. Students enroll in a school for instruction. When you cut corners on instruction, you diminish the value of the product you’re trying to sell. Accordingly, a lower-value product will result in lower consumer interest in your product.
UM is somewhat insulated from this. WCC is not. When you insist upon paying your instructors minimally, you lose not only the students but also your part-time instructors. Instead of squirreling money away in an enormous “rainy day fund” invest some of it in more full-time instructors and pay them what they’re worth to develop new academic programs for in-demand fields. You’ll be amazed by what happens to your enrollment.
Photo Credit: Pictures of Money , via Flickr
